


Interrupting Tardis

by Moonloon (maryavatar)



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Apocalypse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-10
Updated: 2011-12-10
Packaged: 2017-10-27 04:14:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/291515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maryavatar/pseuds/Moonloon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the 2009 apocalyptothon. I started writing this before season 3, and decided not to flounce off in the huff when I got Jossed (damn you, RTD, damn you to Hell).  My prompt was 'A century (or more) after the Apocalypse killed everyone, Jack is still alive. Can be any kind of apocalypse, and feel free to include flashbacks of the rest of the Torchwood team, but at least part of it must take place a century later and Jack is the only one left. Past Jack/Ianto is great, but please no past Jack/Gwen.' I think I stuck to it fairly closely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interrupting Tardis

The blue box appeared in the woodwind section halfway through the first movement of Mozart's Symphony no. 40 in G minor. Jack tried to ignore it and listen to the music, but Jack hadn't been on speaking terms with his brain for close to a century so the orchestra and hall faded away and Jack was left sitting on a rock and staring at the box.

"Tardis," said a disembodied Rose.

"I know what it is." Jack said. He hadn't had one hallucination appear in the middle of another one since the particularly insane few years when random Victorians had constantly interrupted each other's garbled Torchwood reports while wandering though his personal space. Including while he was peeing, masturbating, or screaming at the Rift until his throat bled.

Jack squinted around the landscape – no Victorians, just lots of volcanic rock and Ianto.

Ianto nodded at the Tardis. "Maybe this one is real."

"They're never real."

"Just because they've never been real before doesn't mean it's not real this time. You should check." Ianto peered down at the ground. "Throw a rock."

Jack picked up a lump of rock and threw it through Ianto.

Ianto rolled his eyes. "You know _I'm_ not real. I died with your cock up my arse. I should hope you'd remember that."

Jack did. Vividly. They'd had fifteen minutes warning, and after five of those minutes they'd known they couldn't stop it. Gwen had run – to Rhys probably, but she hadn't wasted a second to tell them, and Jack had stared stupidly at his wrist-strap, wondering if it could spontaneously fix itself in time for a last minute… something. Ianto, as always, was more practical. He'd stripped off his suit and had Jack's trousers half unfastened before Jack realised what was going on.

"You're always in that suit," Jack said. "You would think after – however long it's been – you'd wear something else."

Ianto smoothed down one sleeve. "A man wearing the jumpsuit his last meal arrived in is in no position to criticise anyone's taste in clothes."

"It's Weevilware or naked," Jack said, "Post apocalyptic Earth seems to be a little short on boutiques."

Ianto shrugged. "And I have to wear what your subconscious puts me in. I suppose it would be worse – I could be in what I was wearing when I died."

A thin layer of sweat. No other body fluids, unfortunately. They hadn't quite managed to finish before the Rift exploded in white hot planet-destroying death.

Ianto smirked. "Eternity in the nude – I think you know what that's like."

It hadn't been eternity, it had just felt like it. There had been lava and poison gas and dying every half an hour for an indefinite number of years until things had cooled down a bit. And then there had been about five years of starving to death while scratching the Hell out of very sensitive parts on sharp bits of rock, until Weevils started falling through the Rift again, providing a solution to both problems.

A voice floated up from the now vanished woodwind section. "Oi! Jack!" Jack turned around and saw Owen poking the Tardis. "I think this one's real."

Jack groaned and stuck his head between his knees. He wasn't going to get any peace until he went down there and walked through the damn thing. He looked up and glared at the box. The Tardis didn't like him, and at some point the feeling had become mutual.

Probably since the second time he'd hallucinated it over a big hole in the ground, causing him to fall to an amazingly painful death after joyfully running towards what he'd thought was rescue.

"Fine," Jack said, and stood up.

The Tardis door opened and the Doctor stuck his head out. "What? No, no, this isn't right."

"No kidding," Owen said, and vanished.

Jack started to walk down the slope towards the Tardis, keeping his eye out for any holes. He hadn't noticed anything there before the box appeared, but there had been a very fat man and a girl in a big skirt sitting there playing oboes, and they could have hidden anything.

The Doctor gaped at him, "Jack?"

Jack sighed, "Mozart isn't a favourite, but it's rude to interrupt a performance."

"What? Mozart? Jack, what happened to Earth?" The Doctor stepped out of the Tardis and wrinkled his nose. "Urgh, is that decomposing Weevil?"

Jack stopped his descent and thought about where he'd left the bits of Weevil even incipient starvation couldn't make him eat. "Maybe. I think I left a bit of the last one's digestive tract down here somewhere."

"Jack," the Doctor said slowly, "What happened to Earth?"

"The Rift exploded, everything died. Except me. There's probably some life left on the planet – there was lichen growing on a rock behind you, until I ate it - but Wales was melted right off the face of the planet. Shame really, I liked Wales. When it wasn't raining."

The Doctor stared for a moment then held up one finger. "Wait there a moment." He turned, opened the Tardis door, and as he stepped inside, called over his shoulder, "Really – don't go anywhere."

Jack shrugged. "I'm not the hallucination. I'm not the one who's going to disappear."

The Tardis door swung shut, and Jack picked up a lump of rock and tossed it half heartedly.

*thump*

Jack sat down. "The hallucinations got more realistic."

Ianto sat down beside him. "Or it's real."

"It's not real." Jack picked up another lump of rock and threw it.

*thump*

"Auditory hallucination," Jack said, closing his eyes, "it's not like I've never had them before. I can hear you, can't I? Just another random sound my brain created to fuck with me."

"Or it's real," Susie said, from somewhere behind him.

The Tardis door crashed open, making Jack jump. The Doctor appeared in the doorway and glared at Jack. "This is very very wrong. This wasn't supposed to happen. This _didn't_ happen. There are humans all over the universe all through time, they're like rabbits or cockroaches or... whatever, things that can't be eradicated, and repopulate before you can sneeze. And that can't happen if their home planet gets melted before they've developed inter-stellar travel."

Jack shrugged. "No argument from me."

"What did you do, Jack?"

Jack grinned. "I had lots of really great sex, some mediocre sex, died a lot, ate too much fried food, got inappropriately turned on by co-worker's husbands and wives, was impregnated, spent a lot of time reading trashy novels, one time I got a blow job from sentient gas..."

"Jack!" The Doctor yelled, "What did you do to the Rift?"

Jack shrugged. "Nothing."

The Doctor ran his had through his hair, leaving it sticking straight up. "This... explosion, this apocalypse, is an anomaly in Space and Time. You are a fixed point in Space and Time. You're both _here._ It's likely the two things are connected, don't you think?"

Suddenly this hallucination wasn't fun any more. "Huh, I haven't had a 'blame Jack' hallucination for a while." Jack got a sudden urge to see what he could hallucinate somewhere else, and started back up the way he'd come. "Pineapples. Maybe something with pineapples."

"Just not on pizza," Toshiko said. "Pineapples on pizza are just wrong."

Jack laughed, "Yes..." then stopped. "No, it wasn't you who hated pineapple on pizza, it was... it was..."

"It was Rose," The Doctor said, as he laid a hand on Jack's shoulder. "I don't know who you're talking to, but I know Rose hated pineapple on her pizza. She said it was..."

"… a waste of a pina colada," The Doctor and Jack said in unison.

Jack stood staring up at the horizon and felt the warmth of The Doctor's hand soak into his skin. "I haven't felt the warmth of someone's touch for... well, since the Rift."

"I'm sorry, Jack," The Doctor said. "I'm not blaming you, I just need to understand what happened."

Jack turned around to face the Doctor, his heart thumping so hard he could feel his pulse all the way up to his ears. "No, you don't understand. I can touch Ianto and Gwen and Susie and all the others, but I can't _feel_ them."

Owen's voice floated up from the Tardis. "Re-al!"

Jack stared closely at The Doctor. "Are you real?"

"Yes." The Doctor said.

"Can you fix it?"

The Doctor looked away. "I don't know."

"Can you try?"

The Doctor grinned. "I can certainly try. You want to..." he nodded towards the Tardis.

Jack grinned back. "Okay, but if there's a lot of sharp rocks under there, you're in big trouble." With a whooping battle cry, he sprinted down the jagged slope and leaped though the open door of the Tardis, to land on...

 

the end


End file.
